Souls sequel

Like many I’m getting pretty excited now about Dark Souls III, since it seems to be coming along pretty well and is out in just a few months. But what happens after that? From have said it’ll be the last game in the series but after Bloodborne I think we can assume that just means they’ll do something slightly different but in the same style.

A lot of people have suggested a sci-fi, Giger-esque game and I’m fine with that. But in a sense the setting doesn’t really matter. I just wonder how they’ll change up the gameplay so that it doesn’t just feel like the same thing again.

The obvious ideas to me are making it more of a co-op game, where you have someone with you all the time, and upping the role-playing stuff so that you can talk to people more and maybe do some item crafting or even setting up a Fallout 4 style camp to defend. There’s a lot you could do with the basic Dark Souls set-up and I’m trusting From won’t just go for the same old thing again and again.Road Rager

Second Nemesis

Kind of surprised we haven’t heard anything about a sequel to Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor yet. As far as I could see it was a bigger hit than they were expecting and it got really good reviews, even some awards I think.

I’m not a big Lord of the Rings fan and I really enjoyed it, but I did like the ideas at the time where people were suggesting that the Nemesis system could be used in other games. It’d obviously be perfect for a crime game of some sort, or pretty much any kind of game where you’re playing different sides off against the other.

I hope that happens but I’ll be perfectly happy with Shadows Of Mordor 2 as well. It’s always a nice surprise when a game ends up coming out of nowhere to surprise you. It deserves a sequel.Sacksquash

Physical purchase

I’m in an odd position where I’m really interested in buying The Witness (I appreciate what you’re saying in your review, but I’m such a fan of Sudoku and puzzles like that that I’m sure I’ll like it) but I just can’t bring myself to pay £30 for it. Now I’m not suggesting it’s not worth it, it seems to have a huge running time and I’m certain there are plenty of retail games that have nowhere near the value for money, but paying £30 for something I don’t really own is just too much for me to get my head round.

Although I’m happy to pay up to around £15 for downloadable games I’d never dream of buying a AAA game online. I’m not paying all that money for something I don’t own in either a legal or a physical sense, not to mention the problems if PSN goes down and I want to play it.

So I ask other readers that do buy digitally, is this a passing phase you go through? Did you have the same concerns and then just learn to forget them? It just seems a bad deal to me, let alone pay £50+ for a brand new EA or Activision game.Smiler

Controlling Lara

Gotta agree with all the Rise Of The Tomb Raider love at the moment. I thought it was a great game, despite not particularly looking forward to it at the time, and for me definitely the best looking game on the Xbox One.

I think the reader is right when he says it was probably a bad move by Square Enix to make it a time exclusive though. The sequel was already a bit late as a follow-up to the reboot and now it’s just going to seem like sloppy second for PlayStation 4 owners.

There’s a lot to learn in this game though, for other games, and I love how it feels to control Lara. The weight, the responsiveness… even ignoring everything else they got that just right. Compare that to the third person view in Fallout 4 or The Witcher 3 and it’s just a world away. The difference between feeling you are that controller and just pushing an action figure around on the floor.Ocped

Monstrous clone

Not surprised to see yet another Monster Hunter clone, consider how well they do in Japan. But as usual I’m not really grabbed by it, and not just because you gave it a bad score. I don’t want to seem shallow but the 3DS graphics just don’t cut it for me. I know being portable is all part of its appeal in Japan but surely it’s possible to create a home console take on it that takes advantage of modern graphics?

I’m surprised that a Western dev hasn’t tried to do their own take on it yet, although I guess there is a bit of Monster Hunter in The Witcher 3, and Horizon: Zero Dawn looks like it might be something similar. Although both of those are single-player only.

Teaming up with friends to fight giant monsters in giant open world doesn’t sound like anything that should put off a Western gamer but nobody really seems to have tried. Odd considering how quick they are to clone things like Call Of Duty.Coultard

Ups and downs

I’ve just got a couple of hours in on The Division beta on my Xbox One, and so far I’m fairly impressed. It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster with this one, as first you had the reveal with the amazing graphics, then you got all the delays and talks of downgrades, and now in the last few months the buzz has been pretty positive.

That meant I still tried to keep my expectations relatively low, and I think that’s helped me to enjoy what I’ve played so far. You can see how they’re trying to make sure it’s not just a third person shooter, and for me the question is how much there is to the role-playing and inventory stuff and whether trying to beef it all up can keep you going.

I think the other reader was right to make comparisons to Destiny, not necessarily in the gameplay but just the always-online, constant progression sense of it all. Be interested to see what you think, GC?Smote

GC: We’ll be playing it more over the weekend and should have a report by Monday.

Nothing is certain

So is it accepted now that the Nintendo NX is going to be a hybrid, two-in-one console? The idea sound good but it also sounds very expensive, which is exactly what I’d expect them to avoid after the problems with the Wii U. Surely the sensible option would’ve been a low cost console that’s just as powerful as the PlayStation 4 (which will be cheaper to accomplish now the technology’s a little older).

That will cut the costs and risk for Nintendo and allow third parties to make games for them without any trouble. Then Nintendo can get on with just making great games, which is what they’re best at.

Messing around with hard-to-explain console set-ups that are just as expensive as Sony and Microsoft just seems like they haven’t learnt anything. Is there no chance all of these rumours are just wrong?Trepsils

GC: There’s every chance, although a hybrid console is what the majority of rumours suggest – and the patent reveals did seem to back them up. But even if it is a portable and home console combined it may well be that you buy both parts separately, or that they’re merely cross-compatible, which is actually more in-line with Nintendo’s own hints.

Voting ends soon

I’ve already voted but I have to say I’m really looking forward to seeing what the readers’ top 20 looks like this weekend. Since most people agree that it was a good but not great year that makes it kind of hard to tell what will win. Especially as I assume a lot of people will not have had the chance to play great Wii U games like Splatoon and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

I think GC’s top 20 is already pretty solid, but I predict that The Witcher 3 will probably do better than they had it, and probably Fallout 4 and Dying Light as well. Always interested to see what other readers think though and how it matches up to my own tastes.Franky

GC: We’ve had a lot of votes this year, perhaps our busiest ever, and it’s very close. We shouldn’t spoil anything, but there are at least three different games that could all claim the top spot when voting ends at 6pm today.

Inbox also-rans

I have a spare beta code for the Division on Xbox One. I played an hour or so before work and it is the exact same content available as in the alpha, although with tighter gunplay and less bullet spongey enemies. Just this alone has greatly improved the game.Vegeta01 (gamertag)

GC: That’s very good of you. Since time is of the essence we’ll give this out on a first come, first served basis.

Regarding the Xenoblade Chronicles X size, complexity and length to complete. The map may be bigger but according to Xenoblade Chronicles X takes 210 hours to complete, while Skyrim takes 290 hours to complete. So, apparently the map may be bigger but looks like the content is a bit less.Darryl Christensen

GC: Only 210 hours? Monolith Soft should hang their heads in shame.

This week’s Hot Topic

It’s the last week of January and that means it’s time for the annual Readers Top 20 of the year. If you send us a list of your top three games of last year, then for this weekend’s Inbox we’ll compile the list and you can see what were the most popular games amongst fellow readers.

You can list any game you like, as long as it was released new in the UK in 2015. Remakes, remasters, compilations, and expansions are all fine but please do not include backwards compatible or streamed versions of old games.

You don’t have to include a Hot Topic letter to submit your votes but we are interested in exactly why you voted for the games you did, as well as whether you think 2015’s crop of new titles was better or worse than usual.